


stay as sweet as you are

by eukaryidiot



Category: A Separate Peace - John Knowles
Genre: Angst, Character POV, First Person, Fluff, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Oneshot, slight AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-02
Updated: 2019-07-02
Packaged: 2020-06-02 15:36:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,263
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19444396
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eukaryidiot/pseuds/eukaryidiot
Summary: gene and finny kiss during the winter session, and gene contemplates what it means for them to be in a relationship.Finny was always shouting, voice hoarse from the winter air. He was all warm colors, even then, all reds and pinks and strawberry blonds. He ran toward me, the only source of life amidst gray fields and frosty forests stretched out, away, away. Everything a very long, cold stroll away, except him.





	stay as sweet as you are

**Author's Note:**

> title inspo: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZJZgRbmmGUk

The track was Finny’s life that winter. It was an action, an exercise, and I’d learned a long time ago that these were his lifeblood. When he said the word I ran, breath ragged, his voice nipping at my heels.

_Come on Gene, you’re almost there! One more lap!_

I needed him as he was on the track, like the summer Finny, who was breezy and light and not in pain. If I didn’t comply, I feared, he might fizzle out and slip through my fingers like time in an hourglass.

_Soon you’ll be doing twenty laps in one go like it’s nothing!_

He was always shouting, voice hoarse from winter air. He was all warm colors, even then, all reds and pinks and strawberry blonds. He ran toward me, the only source of life amidst gray fields and frosty forests stretching out, away, away. Everything a very long, cold stroll away, except him.

I returned his victory hug, felt his magnetic pull when he scampered off on his good leg.

“I’m fine, I’m fine!” he yelped, though he didn't protest when I guided him to the iced-over benches anyway.

“My ass is gonna be wet for at _least_ the next hour!”

He made my voice soft, made my throat tickle. He looked at me, snowflakes on his lips and nose—never with any malice, never suspicious.

The moment passed in silence, and he looked away. 

“Finny—”

His eyes darted immediately back to me, and I was uncertain again. I felt my hands move over his. There was something pulling in my throat, begging to be released.

“You’re beautiful," I said.

“Kiss me,” he whispered. And there was nothing else I could do.

His hands surrounded my face, and I ran my own all along his knuckles and fingers. Our lips were one over the other, so as his parted, mine opened with them.

I tensed, and he stopped, and tilted himself into my cheek.

“You alright?” All hot breath and heavy air. 

I nodded, eyes closed, wanting a second chance. I opened my mouth, determined to keep myself slack, and his tongue slid in, heavy and warm and slow. I let it make its rounds of me, tried to accommodate its pushes and pulls. My hands navigated their way to the lining of his hood, picked at the wool there. He was playing with my left ear, kind of running the cartilage shell between his fingers. 

When it was done I slipped my chin over his shoulder and buried my face in the crook of his neck, where he wouldn’t see it. Finny was racked with something like laughter or sobs, hands criss-crossed over my shoulders, shaking.

\--

The next week was full of escapades, of casual compliments and pulling at each others’ hands under the table. On Sunday he dragged me behind a shady pine to sneak kisses after chapel, hair wet from snow and my back from the ice against the bark.

The nights encroached upon the days much like winter. Slowly, inevitably. I would lay in bed only able to think of that particular day.

It was summer. Afternoon. No wind. The events leading up to it were skewed, but that horrible tableau never changed: Finny, miles down in the shadow of the tree, face obscured by grass, river water lapping at his fingertips. He looked frozen in time, limbs splayed as if in mid-fall. 

The bark dug into my palms as I surveyed him from above. I thought of plunging myself into the water and being cleansed. How good it would be to release the pressure behind my throat and let it all fall backwards.

I shook my head, feeling the remnants of panic fade from my lungs. I exhaled long and slow. If it were deep and long enough, I hoped, maybe the image would be expelled in the breath.

I looked around for something, anything to ground me, and gravitated inevitably to the bed next to mine. Finny was sleeping, arms tangled above his head, the same as in my vision. As if I’d taken his corpse into our dorm and it had been sleeping here all this time.

I needed him awake.

“Finny.”

I slipped off my bed and squeezed his shoulder.

_“Finny."_

He shuddered into being, murmured my name. I mumbled his own, and he smiled. Sweet, sleepy, guileless.

“Don’t go back to sleep," I whispered. I fell into him, warmth washing over me like relief.

“Stay here then. You'll need to keep me awake, pal.”

I kissed him. His tongue was taut, his mouth sturdy, almost painful. He panted a little as we came apart and sat up slowly, leaned back on his arms, eyed me with quiet interest.

“Up at this hour?” He smiled.

“Uh-huh.”

He dragged his palms over my cheeks, back and back, dove his fingers in my hair, kissed me again. My palms were sweaty, catching on his skin. I pressed them into his back in a desperate bid to feel all of him at once. He laughed. Little breathy chuckles, little wisps of life. 

“I love you."

He said it far too easily, much more easily than I ever could.

I said nothing, and curled into him, and hid my burning eyes. He wrapped me in his arms, and in my ear it was _I love you I love you I love you_ the rest of the night through.

\--

“Hellooo.” His voice rumbled into my ear.

I rolled onto my side and there he was. Waking in his bed came with a sweet feeling of _at last_.

“G’morning.” He grinned.

There was something too intimate about having allowed him to watch me slip into the unconscious. I hoped absently that my head hadn’t hurt his arm much.

“What time's it?” I asked.

“Six.”

Finny had no business being up that early. But he knew _I_ got up at six.

“Your clothes are on the table," he said. "I checked the tags. So this time we can be sure none of them are mine.”

I almost didn’t register what he said. It was all so good and so much what I wanted that I was sure I didn’t deserve it.

“Thanks.”

“Sure.”

He sat up, drawing all the warmth away but for his palm on my knee. It felt like healing, and almost like forgiveness.

“Can you get up on your own?” I asked.

“Oh, don't worry about me.”

Finny, Finny, Finny. Who wore nothing but boxers to sleep. Had soft lines on his back, curving over shoulders and spine. He pulled himself up on one of his crutches, catching the pale New Hampshire morning in his hair. I resisted the urge to fret over him, and tried to trust him to do it on his own. I watched him put on his clothes, wrapped in his sheets and smelling much like him, until, with some self-persuasion, I joined him.

I finished dressing first, as he still didn’t know his way around a tie after two odd years.

“Could you do it? Tie my tie, I mean.”

He’d never asked before, but he looked pleased as he held it out to me, as if he’d been wanting to for some time. I did. Curtly, expertly, keeping my face even, still following the instinct to ignore his closeness, even now.

“Thanks.”

He looked like he wanted to say more but didn’t, and I was too scared to prompt him.

“You look nice,” I said.

“You're too kind, pal. I look the same as always.”

I gave a light nod.

“I know.”


End file.
